As much of an honor as it was to attend my first USAT National Championships, it was a humbling experience which left me with an intense hunger for more. This would be my 5th and final tri of the season to go along with the 4 other running events I had entered making for a steady 2008 racing season.

2007 would mark my initial entrance into triathlon and endurance sports; familiarizing myself with the equipment, lingo, protocols while devouring as much knowledge as possible. I needed to prove to myself that I could complete a triathlon, that I could run more than 10 miles, that I could build swimming stamina, that I could ride for hours on end and hopefully I would enjoy it along the way. By the end of August of that year I was hooked. I had competed in 4 triathlons, entered a 5th and plopped down $500 to enter Ironman Louisville for 2008.

While 2007 was the year of Can I? 2008 transposed that question into a statement: I Can! … a declarative one at that. This year was all about going long; the Papa Johns 10 miler, the Derby Mini-Marathon, the Muncie half Ironman and Ironman Louisville. I upped the ante on my distance training, tore through the Triathletes Training Bible, dug deep into online resources and forums to learn as much as I could to develop a training plan for my entire season. Quite frankly, for being completely self coached (though I did use Training Plans from BeginnerTriathlete.com) I was amazed at my progression throughout the year. I broke a PR in every race I entered, made incredible gains with my running and established a rock solid nutrition strategy.

Ironman Louisville was my A priority race for the season and with Nationals occurring just 3 weeks after, I had no serious expectations. I was going to put in the best effort that my body would let me and I wanted to do well, but I wasnt aiming for a top 16 spot in my age group which would have qualified me for the World Triathlon Championships.

The water in Hagg Lake was considerably warmer on race day than it was the day before when I was doing my practice swim despite the overcast sky and temperatures in the mid 60s. I was a bit more nervous that I would normally be just because I was at the National Championships. I had a feeling that I was a small fish in a big pond, that even though I qualified to get here, the competition was going to eat me alive. I milled around watching the first few waves go off, cheering the first few people out of the water on, trying to calm my nerves. When they called up the M30-34 age group, I walked out onto the pier grabbed a spot right in the middle and reminded myself to race my own race and be proud I was at the starting line to begin with.

The swim was fairly uneventful. Our wave was small enough and the waves spaced out enough that you had plenty of room to yourself and weren’t getting clawed, punched, elbowed, grabbed, kicked like normally. The water was very clear, calm and the scenery of the evergreen mountains all around you made for a fantastic backdrop. I did my best to try to find someone to draft off of, but still havent mastered that art so I gave up on my few failed attempts and settled into my normal comfortable race pace and turned in a decent swim time for me.

The transition from swim to bike was tough. The swim exit was at the base of a very steep boat ramp which made for a rough start to T1. I was moving hastily, though I knew there was a big hill right out of transition so I needed to relax my escalating heart rate. I had a great spot in transition near the bike out in a straight line from the entry to the exit. I worked the bottom half of my wetsuit off and used my free leg to pin down the rest of the suit which was hanging on my left leg. Since the entire transition area was on a hill and I was in a hurry and wet and … well yea, I slipped and fell on my butt. I got some snickers and words of encouragement by the others around me, but what an embarrassing start to the bike leg. I picked myself, only after taking the time to pull the rest of the wetsuit completely off. I finished the rest of my transition routine and headed out to take on the bike course.

By far the toughest bike course I have raced. I dont know what everyone was worried about the Ironman Louisville bike course for! The Portland course blew it away with 2,000ft of climbing over a 24.8 course, which would extrapolate to 9,000ft over a 112 mile course. There was nothing flat about it whatsoever, you were either going 40 mph downhill or 8 mph uphill.

With a body still recovering somewhat not even a full 3 weeks after Ironman, I started to really underestimate how much I was still suffering from that. My cardio never really held me back as I averaged a pretty comfortable 163 bpm … about 8 beats below what I normally average in an Olympic distance race. It was all in the legs. I just didnt feel the strength in them at all making the climbs fairly difficult. Combine the fact that there were ALOT of them, and the last time I spent on my tri bike I had the Zipp 808s wheels I rented for Ironman and now I was back on my crappy stock wheels which might have been a mental block more than anything.

I had scouted the two loop course the day before and knew what I was getting myself into, but that didnt make it any easier. Since this race was more for experience I told myself very early on to enjoy it more than anything! It was certainly the most scenic course I have been on rolling through the hills in central Oregon around this lake and the weather was great. I would blast down the hills as fast as I could and by the second lap, tried to negative split the best I could though I knew I would need to save something in the legs for the run which would cover the same punishing terrain. I tied for the 5th fastest T2 split in my age group and 17th fastest overall! Couldnt be more pleased about that. The good position in the bike rack, running sockless and without a fluid belt made a big difference.

Once again the hills did me in on the run. Going up the hills I was almost slowed to a walk in some sections, while running down the hills I literally couldnt move my legs fast enough to keep up. The aid stations were a little lacking as there were only 2 or 3 people at each one, nobody was handing out gels, you had to get your own, and they were only on one side of the road so essentially you had to cut through oncoming runners to grab something on the way back.

Looking back at the times that my competitors put in, Im really astonished at how well they did. The hills that made me suffer and put 7 extra minutes on my personal best at this distance, allowed everyone else to run 10Ks in the low 30′s and do sub hour bike splits. It was the scoop of ice cream on the humble pie that was USAT Nationals 2008.

I was really honored to participate, but if I want to toy around with the idea of representing Team USA anytime soon Ive got some serious work to do. The best part about this experience was to really help level set my expectations and identify some key weaknesses in my fitness, specifically hills. I can hold my own seemingly on the flats, but climbing and I need to become close friends, or rather closer enemies.